News of the week

Bitcoin Avoid Drop Below $3000 as Crypto Loses $14 Billion in a Week

Over the past 48 hours, the Bitcoin price has stabilized at around $3,400 after dropping to a new yearly low at $3,210 on December 7. On a weekly basis, Bitcoin is up six percent from $3,210 to $3,400 but the cryptocurrency market has lost $14 billion of its valuation against the U.S. dollar mostly due to the underwhelming performance of major digital assets and the plunge in the value of ERC20 tokens. The Ethereum price has also recovered slightly by a similar magnitude as Bitcoin, with Ethereum (ETH) recording an eight percent increase from $83 to $90. But, the Bitcoin Cash price remains at its all-time low at $94.

Bomb threats were emailed recently to hundreds of businesses, public offices and schools across the United States and Canada demanding payment in cryptocurrency, but none of the threats appeared credible. Messages, threatening to set off explosives unless $20,000 were delivered in bitcoin, subsided within hours as some local authorities began referring to the electronic extortion notes as a scam. One email targeting a St. Louis-area middle school was traced by local investigators to an IP, address in Moscow.

US Mexican Border Wall May Be Done with Blockhain and ‘Wall Coins’

Ohio republican pro-crypto congressman Warren Davidson suggested raising money to build a wall on the border with Mexico using blockchain. Commenting on the matter of the United States president’s recent threat to shut down the government if Congress refuses to pay for a border wall, Davidson said he had offered a “modest compromise” in the form of his initiative, dubbed “Buy a Brick, Build a Wall,” that would accept public donations for the wall’s construction. Davidson did not specify whether he had yet proposed his blockchain-based wall funding concept in any official capacity.

Gaming hardware manufacturer Razer has launched a cryptocurrency mining program named Razer SoftMiner, that generates ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, as well as a rotating cast of other tokens. Razer’s mining software will be contributing to a platform called GammaNow that Razer is partnered with. Users will get “Razer Silver,” that can be redeemed towards purchases on the Razer store.

The electronics giant Samsung is planning to integrate a cold wallet system into its upcoming its S10 Series. If the wallet gets integrated into the Samsung Galaxy S10, users will be able to import their data from wallets such as MetaMask and Trust Wallet to transact natively with the mobile phone. The cryptocurrencies and tokens supported initially may include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum-derived token ERC20 and Bitcoin Cash.

Web browser Opera has launched a built-in cryptocurrency wallet on its Android app. The wallet will first support Уthereum, with support for other coins likely to come later. Ether investors using Opera would potentially be able to more easily access their tokens using the feature. Users can use the cryptocurrency wallet by first downloading Opera and then purchasing some ether tokens to store inside.